The H5N8 was also detected in 20 wild ducks in Northern France over the weekend, leading to increased surveillance in the area.

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513,000 chickens and 489,000 ducks have also been culled in South Korea since November 16, where the H5N8 strain first appeared in early 2014.

Authorities there are now battling the H5N6 strain of the virus, which can spread to humans and has killed at least 10 people in China since April 2014.

While H5N8 strain has never been detected in humans, the World Health Organisation for Animals recently warned more outbreaks of H5N8 are likely in Europe as wild birds believed to transmit the virus migrate southward.

Wild birds can carry the virus without showing symptoms and transmit it to poultry.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed more than 420 people, mainly in southeast Asia, since first appearing in 2003. Meanwhile, H7N9 has claimed more than 200 lives since emerging in 2013, according to World Health Organisation figures.

The Daily Star reported researchers believe the "building blocks" of a virus as deadly as the Spanish flu (H1N1) outbreak of 1918 could be present in poultry - with Dr William Schaffner, of Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, warning the virus could go global in just two years.

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